Mephistopheles is the crafty shape shifter, the second fallen angel. Amazingly complex, coal black, velvety and liqueurish, this demon has a bouquet of vine-ripened grapes, anise and chocolate covered cherries with flavors of rum-soaked caramelized dark fruits and a double espresso finish. Cellarable for 10+ years.

Mephistopheles is the final installment of “The Demons of Ale” series.

Pours dark as the Devil's @nu$. Intense chocolate and roasted malt nose. Smooth, creamy mouthfeel breaks way to prominent licorice flavor and then the heat of the ABV takes over. I would liken it to taking your favorite Russian Imperial and dropping an ounce of Maker's in to it.

Expectations are high given the style coupled with the brewery. Served at fridge temp and allowed to come to temperature over the course of consumption. Side-poured into a Guinness goblet with standard vigor as no carbonation issues are anticipated.

No bubble show forms as it's poured.

HEAD: It's a gorgeous rich tan colour. 3.5 fingers wide. Incredible shiny complexion. Stellar consistency; it looks soft, smooth, even, and creamy as hell. Retention is nothing short of amazing considering the high ABV; the head sits there for over 10 minutes.

No lacing sticks to the sides of the glass as the head recedes.

This is a hell of a cap for an imperial stout.

BODY: Colour is a predictable opaque jet black. No yeast particulate or hop sediment can be seen in the ink-black.

Appears well-carbonated. It's not unique looking for an imperial stout, but it sure is appealing. Sure, the head could be darker, and some ruby hues in the body would be nice, but I'm nitpicking. It looks more or less as it should.

4.0

AROMA: Coffee notes are present, but I don't find any roast, earthiness, etc. Not the most complex or subtle coffee presence, but nice overall.

I detect no overt yeast or hop character. The label mentions it's brewed with Belgian yeast, but I detect no real Belgian character.

I crave roasted barley, but none is present. It's on the sweeter side, but doesn't seem like the cloying mess many imperial stouts are. I've definitely come across sweeter, richer, and more "dessert beer" examples of the style. Merely average in strength.

TASTE/TEXTURE: Marshmallow, burnt sugars, caramelization, chewy sticky dark fruit (especially dates and raisins), dark malts, chocolate malts, and some generic coffee notes. Sadly, the coffee lacks roastiness, earthiness, richness, and anything else that would set it apart. Milk chocolate comes out more and more as the beer comes to temperature, along with the molasses. The turbinado sugar is present throughout, but lacks enough intensity to bring this flavour profile into the "Mexican chocolate" territory of imperial stouts.

It doesn't feel Belgian in character, but the dark fruits and unconventional sugars do separate it from the distinctively American examples of the style. It's low on hops, as it should be. The burnt character is nice, but some drinkers will find this acrid.

It's balanced and enjoyable, with some lurking booziness but nowhere near as much as you'd anticipate. This is a cohesive build for an imperial stout with plenty of complexity as well as some limited subtlety, but there are far more intricate beers in the style which boast much more depth of flavour.

Average flavour duration and intensity. Nice flavour amplitude.

It's certainly on the sweeter side, but I wouldn't quite call it a dessert beer per se. I do wish there was a roasted barley backbone to balance the sweetness a bit better.

Texture-wise, it's lightly powdery on the palate, as well as chewy and sticky. It's nicely thick and full-bodied, and perhaps a biteen syrupy. Its subtle dryness and coarseness fit the dark fruits featured in the flavour profile. It could be creamier and softer. It's a biteen overcarbonated, even after the two-ish years it's had to calm down in my cellar. Overall, it has a good presence on the palate and this texture supports the flavour profile well, but never feels like it's custom-engineered to bring out the best in the taste.

OVERALL: It hides its high ABV pretty well, and isn't quite the sipper I thought it would be. I think age has mellowed it out. It's a very nice imperial stout considering its wide availability, and I'd certainly recommend aging this.

But there are many great imperial stouts out there, and this one lacks unique or special elements. The coffee should be richer, there should be a roasted barley backbone, it should be creamier and softer, there could be more of a dark malt presence, there could be some less common notes (e.g. coconut). More commitment to the marshmallow would be nice as well; if this was more carefully executed they could easily evoke s'mores between the burnt sugars and the marshmallow. Ultimately, you've got to bring more to the table if you want to stand out in this style.

I'm glad this is easy to come by in my home state, but I can't say it's a fantastic beer. Just a surprisingly mellow, drinkable imperial stout with a no-frills flavour profile. There's little here for the discerning drinker.

A certain level of communion is created when one decides to open and consume a beer of this gravity. Aptly named, as there are promises implied, not necessarily kept and at a cost (figuratively and literally). Hoped for more but that was on me.

This was my nightcap beer the other night and I have to say it did the trick,poured into a brandy snifter pitch black no light could break thru here a thinner beige colored head atop.Deep darf fruit in the nose and slightly nutty like a good port more than anything alcohol is very prevelant as well with noticeable molasses/brown sugar as well.Great full bodied almost chewey mouthfeel great for sipping,I go back to the port example for this beer on the palate as well very sweet up front with big raisin and prune flavors along with some sweet alcohol with an onslaught of nutty terrine-like flavors in the finish.A great sipper with alot of character be careful with this devil though it packs a punch.

S: The smell is loaded with aromas of dark chocolate and cocoa. Lots of coffee and roasted malts as well. The alcohol is very noticeable and with deep breaths I pick up lots of piercing and slightly medicinal alcohol fumes. After a while, hints of wet blanket appear, a result from the cellaring I guess and I suspect that further cellaring wouldn't do this any good.

T: The taste is sweet at first with aromas of roasted malts, chocolate and espresso. The acidity you sometimes get from roasted malts is kept at bay. Notes of dark fruits, prunes and licorice. The alcohol becomes present already in the mouth and increases in strength toward the finish. There are some bitter flavors in the finish, but most of all there is a powerful taste of sweet and basically burning alcohol with notes of raisins and wood. The finish is very long and the taste of alcohol sticks around for ever in the mouth.

M: Full bodied with a somewhat creamy texture.

D: I don't think this one completely manages to pull of what it tries to achieve. A 16% ABV imperial stout is risky business and lots of things can go wrong with such a brew, and this one holds up reasonably well. But although well integrated, the alcohol gets a little to prominent and basically eradicates any possible subtleties to appear, so complexity gets a little low. But it's still fairly balanced and other than the overly powerful alcohol, I enjoyed it.

I have been on a bit of an imperial stout journey lately and when I found this beer at Wine World in North Augusta, SC, I was definitely stoked to try it.

Bottled Dec 2009, Batch 5

A: Poured from a 12 oz bottle into a snifter at approximately 50 degrees. The appearance is on par with some of the better imperial stouts I've tried (Ten Fidy): black, pure black, with a minimal 1/4 inch tan head that fades quickly into a minimal layer on the surface. Moderate lacing.

S: The nose of this beer is its' best quality hands down. You are hit first with a big bag of roasted chocolate malt followed by a distinct caramel and raisin aroma. You will keep coming back for more. In fact, this beer is impossible to sip without first taking a nice long whiff. Outstanding.

T: The roasted chocolate characteristics really shine through with this beer, accompanied by a nice palatable smokiness and intense alcohol burn with the roasted chocolate lingering on the palate. Honestly, from the aroma I was expecting a more complex flavor profile but this is pretty standard: chocolate, smoke, alcohol. Definitely a sipper (and a sharer) as I did not find the alcohol characteristics hidden by any means....which may be a plus depending on your tastes.

M: Rich, succulent, chewy, thick etc. etc. Definitely a great sipper.

O: Overall this beer was a mixed bag for me. The taste was pretty subpar when comparing it to other top rated imperial stouts. It is by no means a bad tasting beer; however, there are better tasting imperial stouts out there. In addition, I did not find the alcohol burn very pleasant in the flavor profile but I cannot hold that against the beer...more of a self-discovery. While the taste was lacking in desired complexity, the aroma of this beer is very addicting. I simply wish the taste completely lived up to the smell. That being said, I would try it again just so I could smell it (kind of weird...I know).

Bottled Nov 2008. Slayed in the name of Dio. The liquid pours as black as the bowels of hell. Whiffs of bread, chocolate, peanut butter, nouget. snickers bar, if you will. A heat comes out in the taste. I cry for magic. Molasses and bready notes lift me up. Nice beer. Like a rainbow in the dark. I look forward to tasting a bottle of this that's five years old or more.

Like it said, it looks great. I was shocked by how dark it was, even for a stout, with a deep chocolate-colored head that fluffed up to about an inch. The smell was very fragrant (but keep sniffing too long and all you'll get is alcohol fumes), but has a sticky sweetness that may turn some stout lovers off before the first sip. The sweetness follows through in the taste, but not in a fruity way. Rather, it conveys a similar sweetness that whiskey does, and with the same punch to the taste buds. This slows down the drinkabilty and forces you to sip slowly. It's not a thick beer, but the high alcohol content can make it difficult to grasp different flavors. A lasting impression of syrupy molasses sweetness will not put it on many people's favorites list, but thankfully it's not terribly annoying for those willing to stick it out.

In answer to my earlier question: The 16% alcohol content may warrant a $10 price tag, but $12 is kind of pushing it for a tiny bottle that looks better than it tastes. I'll pay those extra two dollars the next time when the beer delivers more than molasses.

A-Black with no ruby edges. Does not have motor oil like thickness. Small tannish head that dissipated quicklyS-I poured this and could smell the booze while it sat on the counter. Boozy, roasted coffee/chocolate, caramel sweetness, some soy sauce/meaty scents.T-Hot alcohol on first sip which gives a metallic/copper flavor, roasted malt with some soy sauce like tang, black licorice, underlying fruity/caramel reminiscent of barleywine, few hops but bitter ending. Alot of flavor but not sure how well it all blends together. Kind of salty metallic flavor lingers in mouth that is not so pleasant for me.M-Creamy in mouth, full body,very coatingD-Big flavors but alcohol is so prevelant, it would be hard to drink more than one-even one. Appropriate that it's named after a demon.

Taste: Huge, intense flavors that are coming at me all at once. I'll try to interpret them all individually... It starts off very sweet, and kind of toes the line at being "cloy", which means it is sickeningly sweet. Then I taste almost like a chocolate, cherry flavor with a boozy, almost double espresso kick in the finish. Slight hints of vanilla, plum, and a dash of cinnamon.

Mouthfeel: FULL-BODIED. Carbonation is medium-high, but seems to fit the beer fairly well, despite the high alcohol content. VERY chewy. This is a beer that I like to say "you can practically eat it".

Overall: This is a life-changing beer. The sweetness is borderline too much, but the complex flavors that take over after the initial sweetness make it worth the enjoyment.

No that's not a typo, Batch #3 bottled in November 2007 is indeed 16-percent ABV, which without a doubt is pushing the envelope.

Three fingers of brown head rise from a steady pour down the side of the glass, and the bubbles have a tough time getting through the viscous liquid to form their head. Black, there is no light when looking at this beer ... just black. Aromas of a charred raisin bagel, alcohol-soaked Bing cherries, light molasses, vague licorice root and vanilla, clean solvent and vinous alcohol, espresso and baker's chocolate all come to mind. Creamy and a little syrupy with a semi-smooth carbonation. Dense flavor profile slowly unfolds with each sip and each degree it warms up. Choco-goodness seems the strongest out of the bunch, molasses, charcoal, molten chocolate cake flavors blanket the taste buds. Hops are mellow and drop a little bit of flavor. Alcohol dials in quite cleanly for its size and the faint solvent flavor is a little spicy, but a vinous character really shows the complexity. Peppery sweet chocolate finish.

Chocolate wine? An extremely enjoyable sipper. Seriously, it tastes like chocolate wine if there is such a thing. Don't just buy one bottle, this is one gem that could be consumed now and cellared.

What a unbelievable beer! Poured motor oil black with a nice dark chocolate head and great lace on the glass. The smell was big with toasted malts, molassis, plums and a touch of hops. The taste was very big with good sweetness in the beginning, a bit of alchohol flavor in the middle and a nice slightly bitter finish leaving you wanting for more. This will taste great if aged and I bet it would taste great as part of an Imperial Stout Float with some nice vanilla bean ice cream! Try it now!

An absolutely phenomenal beer.Poured into a tulip glass, it was a midnight black color with a thick tan head. There was plenty of lace.Very boozy aroma, but in no way intrusive. Sweet, fruity, chocolatey. Roasted malt.I can't do justice to a description of the taste of this beer. Strong alcohol, espresso, chocolate, cherry, peppery. All these flavors merged in an exemplary fashion.This was a rich, rewarding beer, one to sip and savor. Excellent.